Faculty Learning Circles

The Guide to Belonging in Law School is the only book of its kind and should be required summer reading before law school. It accomplishes two discrete goals. First, it requires readers to engage in an authentic, rigorous, mini-law school semester involving reading, studying, five Socratic classes (through the connected website), exam preparation, and exam writing. Second, the book provides a foundation for students from marginalized groups to recognize and manage both subtle and explicit barriers that can impede their progress. Law schools should recommend this book to every incoming law student, especially those from groups underrepresented in the profession. Professor McClain is a nationally-recognized expert on inclusiveness and minority student achievement in law school.

College Belonging reveals how colleges' and universities' efforts to foster a sense of belonging in their students are misguided. Colleges bombard new students with the message to "get out there!" and "find your place" by joining student organizations, sports teams, clubs and the like. Nunn shows that this reflects a flawed understanding of what belonging is and how it works. Drawing on the sociological theories of Emile Durkheim, College Belonging shows that belonging is something that members of a community offer to each other. It is something that must be given, like a gift. Individuals cannot simply walk up to a group or community and demand belonging. That's not how it works. The group must extend a sense of belonging to each and every member. It happens by making a person feel welcome, to feel that their presence matters to the group, that they would be missed if they were gone. This critical insight helps us understand why colleges' push for students simply to "get out there!" does not always work. 

How can new faculty find success in academia and what can universities do to support them? In this book, the author demonstrates how a coaching-focused stance toward faculty development can improve equitable conditions within the university and contribute to faculty retention and well-being. For faculty and graduate students, this book emphasizes the skills needed to be a successful academic with a focus on lifespan learning. For universities, this book articulates how institutions can implement an equity-driven plan for faculty development. In the first section, Mitra investigates the structures that can contribute to inequities, spotlighting the unspoken assumptions and lack of clarity of institutional processes. In the second section, she interweaves the building blocks needed for faculty success (agency, belonging, and competence) with the traditional academic expectations of research, teaching, and service. With engaging vignettes and extended examples of faculty experiences, The Empowered Professor centers on the space in which individuals can find success within academic settings while maintaining the integrity of themselves. Book Features: Action steps universities can take to improve faculty recruitment and retention. Workbook-style exercises to help academics connect personal goals and experiences with book content. An equity-driven model of faculty development that connects individual goals with an understanding of academic structures. Research-based evidence on how inequitable structures are perpetuated by university policies, with insights for increasing diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Sense of belonging refers to the extent a student feels included, accepted, valued, and supported on their campus. The developmental process of belonging is interwoven with the social identity development of diverse college students. Moreover, belonging is influenced by the campus environment, relationships, and involvement opportunities as well as a need to master the student role and achieve academic success. Although the construct of sense of belonging is complex and multilayered, a consistent theme across the chapters in this book is that the relationship between sense of belonging and intersectionality of identity cannot be ignored, and must be integrated into any approach to fostering belonging. Over the last 10 years, colleges and universities have started grappling with the notion that their approaches to maintaining and increasing student retention, persistence, and graduation rates were no longer working. As focus shifted to uncovering barriers to student success while concurrently recognizing student success as more than solely academic factors, the term "student sense of belonging" gained traction in both academic and co-curricular settings. The editors noticed the lack of a consistent definition, or an overarching theoretical approach, as well as a struggle to connect disparate research. A compendium of research, applications, and approaches to sense of belonging did not exist, so they brought this book into being to serve as a single point of reference in an emerging and promising field of study.

Winner of the 2020 Scholarly Contributions to Teaching and Learning Award from the American Sociological Association Many students struggle with the transition from high school to university life. This is especially true of first-generation college students, who are often unfamiliar with the norms and expectations of academia. College professors usually want to help, but many feel overwhelmed by the prospect of making extra time in their already hectic schedules to meet with these struggling students. 33 Simple Strategies for Faculty is a guidebook filled with practical solutions to this problem. It gives college faculty concrete exercises and tools they can use both inside and outside of the classroom to effectively bolster the academic success and wellbeing of their students. To devise these strategies, educational sociologist Lisa M. Nunn talked with a variety of first-year college students, learning what they find baffling and frustrating about their classes, as well as what they love about their professors' teaching.   Combining student perspectives with the latest research on bridging the academic achievement gap, she shows how professors can make a difference by spending as little as fifteen minutes a week helping their students acculturate to college life. Whether you are a new faculty member or a tenured professor, you are sure to find 33 Simple Strategies for Faculty to be an invaluable resource.